The first day we were at Mustang Island State Park February 25, we had taken a drive south to Padre Island National Seashore to see what that is all about. The area is gorgeous seashore with plenty of birds and miles of hard beach to drive on to camp on and to just sit on. Here is Carol dining by the car. The next time we come this way we will camp out on the beach.

A quick correction. The Ploessers had gone on home to Kentucky. Shelley and Norm Topf joined us mid day on February 27 as the stock market was headed for one of its deepest point slides ever. Fortunately, in percentage terms, it was just awful not disastrous.

We sat around the coaches and caught up with each other and our thoughts on many things. The women decided we would get together for dinner on the coaches rather than try to find a decent restaurant. Since Shelley was definitely not able to do any work, Carol volunteered host onboard G2. We prepared fajitas with chicken for three of us and lots of grilled veggies so Carol had plenty to eat as well. The food and wine enabled us to forget the market and go on to other things.

Later when I checked email, it turned out that the Hoggs had driven right by Mustang Island SP in the early afternoon while we were in Port Aransas birding. They had thought about stopping to see how the park looked for future reference, but decided to drive on. They were staying at a campground on route 35 and we planned to drive that way on our way. Can’t say on our way where as we had no clue where we planned to stop, but we are sort of headed for Gulf Shores, AL eventually. Anyhow we agreed to pull up on the wide shoulder of TX 35 outside their resort and have a get together right there. As it turns out the local highway department had other plans and they created a work zone for a mile either side of the entrance and there was no place left to stop. When Pat called with this news they said they would stand in the entrance to their campground and wave as we went by. We checked in by phone as we cleared the ferry at Aransas Pass and 20 minutes later we slowed on the shoulder of the road, now serving as the main right-of-way and waved and honked to the Hoggs as they returned the waves. Thus we now have a new kind of get together a “Wave By.” We hope to see the Hoggs next a year from now as we crisscross our wanderings in the southwest of the US. We also have a tentative plan to meet them in Calgary in the summer of 2008 as we head for Alaska and they join up with us on the way.

We left Shelley and Norm in Mustang Island SP and made tentative plans to see them in Gulf State Park, AL. For sure we will see them in Perry, GA at the rally in mid March.

At some point I looked at Carol and saw she had a passenger:

We are getting very comfortable making friends and meeting them in the middle of no place as we all seem to circulate in the same region. In our case, if there is someone we want to spend time with, it is not difficult to modify our driving schedule to make it possible. We can always vamp for a day or drive an extra couple of hours if it will enable us to meet up with someone. We have even been known to go 200 miles in a different direction for the same reason.

Just for a refresher; we seldom want to drive more than 250 miles in a day. Six hours of driving is more than enough and although that sounds like over 300 miles it usually will take us that long to cover 250 miles. We almost never go faster than 64. We stop every two hours at least to change drivers. Anything that looks interesting can initiate additional stops. Oh yes, some fuel stops can take 30 to 45 minutes if there is a line at the RV Island or other errands that need to completed while stopped. The other thing that slows us down is the use of many lesser highways. Since we don’t choose to roll at 70 MPH, we are much happier off the interstates. Also there are many more interesting things to see on the old Federal and State routes.

Given those parameters it is easy to see that we can extend our range from the normal plan rather easily by sticking to Interstates and limiting our stops. Books on tape or CD are the greatest way to extend range. If the reader is great, who wants to spend time stopped with the story off?

At the moment we are in Galveston Island State Park (19 consecutive nights in Texas State Parks) getting ready to move on in the morning. We have eaten well, toured well and gotten to see Galveston. We will be back